


Mirror, Mirror

by Feavel



Series: One-Shot Dumping Ground [1]
Category: Real Person Fiction
Genre: Gen, It's one in the morning gimme a break, Self Confidence Issues, Self-body shaming, writing.com prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 09:19:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7262137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feavel/pseuds/Feavel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mirror never lies. Right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mirror, Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I was thinking of myself when I wrote this. No, my reflection does not move on its own. Yes, I should be asleep right now. No, I will not go to sleep.

The dress is perfect. It’s a gorgeous shade of blue that compliments both my skin and my eyes, with pink and gold accents just for show; it’s just low-cut enough to be more daring than I usually am, without making me uncomfortable; it falls just above my knees, which is about as high as I’d like it to go; it’s on sale; it’s my size exactly—it’s perfect. Naturally I buy it. Wouldn’t you, if you found a piece of clothing that fit literally every single one of your criteria to such a T? 

On the way home from the dress shop, though, one or two small doubts start to creep into my mind. It’s going to be a long night, the wedding I’m wearing this to. There’ll be alcohol—I’m not worried about me; I’m designated driver, so I’ll be sticking with water—I’m worried about the overconfident frat guys the groom has for friends. There’s obviously going to be at least one guy who tries to hit on me by the end of the night; is the dress provocative enough for people to say I should have dressed more modestly? Am I thin enough to pull off such a form-fitting dress? 

These thoughts and about eight million more like them I push to the back of my mind as I enter my bedroom, looking askance at the mirror in the corner. I’ve covered it with a blanket at the behest of my therapist, just to see if I can’t improve my self-image by not looking in it (other mirrors are fine, just not that one). I’m a big girl. Surely it won’t hurt too much to take another look at the dress, maybe try to pair it with a necklace and shoes that I already own, so I don’t have to go shopping again.

I tug the blanket off the mirror and the bag off the dress, getting dressed and standing in front of the mirror. 

Everything is fine. I look good in this dress—for about two seconds. Then my reflection moves. I haven’t. 

Here we go again.

First she yawns, then she stretches. Then she gets to work, analytically moving her eyes up and down my body, almost the way a construction worker stares at the building he’s about to demolish. 

“Hey, buddy! I’ve missed you,” she says in that mockingly chipper manner I’ve come to associate with video-game villains. “Where do you wanna start today, the top or the bottom?” Without waiting for an answer, she continues, “Y’know, I think I’ll start at the bottom, just to make things easier. Save the biggest workload for last, right? So!” She claps her hands once. “Feet.”

“My feet are fine,” I protest. She only laughs. “Oh, please. You’ve got calluses on your toes, your toenails are too long, the shoes you’ve picked will probably give you hammer toes, and your big toes are already slanting in the way your grandma’s do. Of course, I know how to fix all those things, but where’s the fun in telling you, or in you putting in an effort to find out? Moving on!” She shifts her gaze up to my calves. They seem to pass the test today; her eyes keep moving and stop at my thighs. “Oh, hon. Your feet are the least of your problems. From the knees up, I don’t know if you know this, but you’ve got some weight to lose. Do you think maybe a dress a little longer would have suited you better? This one covers your thighs—thank God—but you’ve got some chub showing at the bottom there, right around and above your knees. Which only makes your calves look thinner, which makes your thighs look fatter. See where I’m going with this?”

I want to disagree. I still think the dress is fine. It’s cute. It covers most of my problem areas, anyway, and it’s still a really good color for me. My reflection laughs again. I’d forgotten that she can hear what I’m thinking. “‘Cute’?” She repeats. “You’re seventeen. You look like you’re twelve, but that’s a different story. Are you sure you want people thinking ‘cute’ when they see you? ‘Cause I can guarantee you, you’re not the kind of ‘cute’ you use as a euphemism for ‘devastatingly attractive,’ or even just ‘good-looking.’ You, my friend, are full-on twelve-year-old ‘cute.’ Anyway!” She steamrolls my feeble attempt at rebuttal. “Lucky for you, dresses don’t show your lack of a thigh gap, so thighs won’t be a huge problem this go-round. Neither will your hips or butt, really, but I’ll cover them anyway, because they need to be covered. Literally. Does your butt have dimples? What are those? Is it too big, too small? Who can tell, honestly. Why is there still baby fat on your hips? Or is that normal fat? Either way, adult fat is definitely what’s on your waist. And around it. So much that it’s basically not a waist anymore. With that, those hips, and the shoulders I’ll get to in a minute, your body shape is pretty much a rectangle. Not flattering, no matter what you put it in. 

“Where was I? Oh, right, the waist! But I think I’m done with that, so we’ll move on to your belly. I’ll give it to you straight, because I like you. If you don’t suck in with all you’re worth, you look like you’re four months pregnant. If you do suck in, it’s about one month at the bottom, but there’s nothing you can do for the stuff at your ribcage. You know, right under your boobs? See how everything just kind of hangs loose about an inch away from your body there? That’s because of that bit of fat I was just talking about. Not good. Also, not immediately fixable, so have fun working out until you drop from exhaustion and trying to either eat healthily or not at all. 

“And while we’re close to your boobs, let’s talk about them. What’s with them? Big enough to get in the way and limit the amount of stuff that’s flattering on you, but not big enough for low-cut stuff to look good, even with a push-up bra. I mean, come on. And they don’t help the rectangle thing I was talking about earlier. 

“Now before I go up, let’s get the arms. From the bottom, to continue the trend. Your fingers are fine, mostly, as long as you keep your fingernails long—not too long, though! Wouldn’t want them to get in the way of things like typing and playing piano. Finding that perfect length’s gotta be entertaining, right? The rest of your hands is okay, if a little pudgy. Where the real pudge is, though, is your arms. Forearms on up, you’ve got fat you don’t need.” I think I mumble something about that being muscle. I am a black belt, after all. “Muscle?” She lets out a bark of laughter. “Keep telling yourself that, babe. If it were muscle, what would it be doing at your armpit and on your back? You only use those muscles for push-ups, and since when have you been able to do those?” Okay, that’s uncalled-for. I can do push-ups. Granted, not many, but I can do them. That must be where that extra muscle comes from. Right? 

“Even if some of it is muscle—which I doubt—it doesn’t matter that much, because you’ve got serious bacne that won’t go away, and even if you stand up straight, there’s so much fat around your shoulders that it looks like you’re slouching!” As I defensively straighten up a little, she claps her hands. 

“Now on to my favorite part: your face. Before you say anything, I know you’re asking me how you look in this new dress, and the dress doesn’t affect your face, but I’m gonna talk about the face anyway, because God knows something’s affected it. So. First things first, your face is perpetually this weird pinkish-reddish color that would maybe be kinda cute if it were just on your cheeks, but no. It’s everywhere. Cheeks, nose, chin, forehead, everything. It doesn’t help that your face is always really greasy, no matter how much you wash it, and you’ve always got at least one zit and about twenty zit scars to cover up. Plus, I notice that you’ve got the beginnings of a double chin going on, whenever you look even the tiniest bit down, and on the subject of your chin, can I just say: I love the Wicked Witch of the West nose/chin combo you’ve got there, in all those three-quarter profile pictures of you. You know, it comes out most when you smile, since you’ve also got the cheeks of a chipmunk. Oof, and his teeth, too—all big and square and yellow. Stop smiling; no one wants to see that.” I never smiled in the first place.

“Question—only because I’m really, genuinely curious: how is it that your face is both a circle and this rounded square thing? How do you do that? Is it something to do with your lips or your nose? ‘Cause those could use some Photoshop, too. You even move your mouth and the chipmunk cheeks emerge, and your nose doesn’t know what it’s doing. Is it crooked? Is it button? Is it big? Is it all three? Who knows? It sure looks weird, though! 

“Same goes for your ears, like, what even happened? From the side, they’re so small, but you pull your hair back, and suddenly you’re Dumbo. What? 

“And what a perfect transition into your hair! It’s always greasy, just like your face! You wash it with just shampoo—not clean. You wash it with shampoo and conditioner—not clean. You wash it with freaking dish soap—which you read worked great instead of those super-expensive weekly superpower shampoos—not clean. Plus, it’s pencil-straight and thick enough to get blown around and tangled into a rat’s nest or four, but not dense enough to hold any sort of curl or style at all without a can and a half of hairspray. Which just makes washing it worse. How sad for you.

“And, you know what, your eyes are fine, I think, if your eyebrows could decide what they’re doing with their lives. They look almost greasy—can eyebrows get greasy? With your luck, yours can. And hey, I know I spent the last—what, ten minutes?—focused on your face, but don’t forget what I said about the dress, okay? That stuff’s important. Image is everything, you know, and with your image…you haven’t got much. Just think on that. _¡Mañana!_ ” And with that, my reflection is my own again. Twisting around with me, plucking uncomfortably at my dress with me, making faces with me. 

I sigh, throwing the blanket back over the mirror. I’ll still wear the dress to the wedding, I guess. It looks all right, from some angles. And half of the people at the wedding will be related to me and/or older than sixty, anyway—both requirements for commenting on the beauty of every young person in a fifty-yard radius. They won’t care if people can see the smidgen of fat around my knees.

 _But you’ll care,_ whispers a voice in my head that sounds suspiciously like my reflection. _And isn’t that what everyone says_ really _matters?_ Your _opinion of yourself?_


End file.
